NF3: When Stones Speak
by SilverTurtle
Summary: Another adventure for Bailey and Emma, this time in South America. They've got some surprises waiting for them in the Amazon Rainforest when they go looking for, and find, an ancient temple built for a forgotten hero. Also, Emma has a shotgun.


**A/N:** I wrote this at the prompting of Lody, a not so fancy chart, some D&D dice, and a Happy Heart (little flat plastic heart with a happy face painted on one side. I've had it for 12 years now. It's a cheerful yellow). Also, if you've read my 'Grits & Glamour' story, you'll know that I've named and cast all of Bailey's sisters. Well, another of her sisters shows up in this fic. Her name is Danny and I've cast Danielle Panabaker to play her. Danny is 4 years older than Bailey.

**Warning:** This story contains some very light femslash. If that's not your bag, turn back now or get over it and read a good fic.

*****'*****

**NEW FINDINGS: WHEN STONES SPEAK**

Bailey wielded her machete with precision and skill, hacking the dense jungle growth from her path and making enough noise to scare off any dangerous creatures. She glanced over her shoulder and saw Emma carefully following behind her with a small video camera in one hand recording their progress and prodding the foliage with a hefty stick in the other hand to ensure the swift departure of any animals. Neither of them wanted a repeat of the snake bite incident, especially not since they were so much farther away from civilization and help should the need arise.

They were alone on this expedition; their guide had refused to take them further than two miles outside of his village. The local legends had it that the temple they were looking for was haunted, that any that went in search of it either disappeared or were found later torn to pieces by things much more dangerous than common predators.

Bailey took local legends with a grain of salt. She's had to face down lore before, and mostly she's found that things like that have perfectly mundane explanations. Perhaps a couple of kids ran off and 'disappeared', but since the people rarely left their territory they never knew the kids had run to the next town over to wed and live in bliss. Or that remains that had been found had been ravaged by predators and claimed by nature. She's sure that there have been some disappearances and even some unexplained deaths, but to cite the temple as the source of these unfortunate things was a little beyond her capability to believe.

Still, the stories were there and it never hurt to be cautious. That's why she and Emma both carried handguns and bladed weapons on their person. Emma even had a shotgun strapped to her pack and ready for use. They'd learned their lesson about walking around in unfamiliar countries unescorted and unarmed, and it had cost Bailey dearly in pain and recovery time. Charles Bolivier was not a lesson soon forgotten, though Bailey knew it could have been much _much_ worse for her.

Though the temple was the given source of all the worst tales of barbarism in this region Bailey had found texts on other digs and in libraries that indicated the temple had once been the monument to a great hero. One the people had largely ignored at the time though the warrior had fought endlessly, and alone, to keep them safe from all the things that hunted in the night. Those tales of a brave warrior were few and fragmented, scattered into the depths of time and to the carelessness of people. But one reference that contained the warrior had also contained a general location, and that had been the beginning of this search.

***'***

Over the years Bailey had run across these vague references of a warrior unsurpassed in skill and ferocity, they reminded her of something but she couldn't quite remember what, and she had been extremely interested in learning more but most of the source materials had been degraded and much of the information had been lost. She had all but given up hope of ever finding anything when she'd run across an ancient scroll while cataloguing artifacts for her museum. The scroll hadn't been labeled, there was no information on it, and it hadn't been translated. Part of Bailey's job with the museum, as an anthropologist and linguist, was to translate any texts that might come through. When she'd asked about this scroll the curator had disavowed any knowledge of it. So they had no idea where it had come from, how long it had been in the archives, or what its contents might be.

It was just the kind of challenge Bailey reveled in.

Sure she liked to get out and hunt things down, but occasionally she enjoyed good mental exercise just as much. A chance to use her mind and all the skills she'd honed was rare indeed, so she relished the opportunity.

With permission from the curator she set about translating the text. It was slow and difficult going. The language was one she didn't know, ancient and all but lost in time, but she kept at it doggedly. Some symbols she'd been able to recognize and translate from comparatively more modern languages, ones only a few thousand years old.

Initially Emma had been disinterested in this particular mission; she'd been occupied writing a second book about their adventures together. But as soon as she'd sent the manuscript off to the publishers she'd caught Bailey's enthusiasm and delved head first into the project. They were rewarded with weeks of frustration after they got stuck after the initial translations. But they didn't give up. She and Emma had called up every linguist they'd ever met and pulled some strings to get reference materials sent to Bailey's office.

Eventually, she got lucky. One book in a thousand, mailed from a NORAD base in Colorado by Daniel Jackson, contained a fragmentary knowledge of the runes on the scroll that danced on the backs of her eyelids whenever she closed her eyes.

With that book in hand she translated the deteriorated scroll to the best of her ability and discovered, to her amazement, that it chronicled the building of a great temple to an even greater hero. The same hero she'd been picking up tidbits about for years. Even better, the scroll contained a vague location, somewhere deep in South America in an area no longer populated by humans. Her curiosity roused she felt there was no choice but to find this temple and discover what secrets it held, learn what history had forgotten.

Her financiers were reluctant to fund another full scale operation since her last one had ended so badly. Though, really, they had nothing to complain about. Bailey might have come home broken but they'd gotten a vast amount of artifacts and knowledge from that dig, so Bailey felt they really had nothing to complain about. Even so, they refused to fund another dig, particularly one based on such flimsy information leaving Bailey and Emma funding this expedition themselves.

The success of Emma's first book and royalties from it were still pouring in, so they had enough money to get themselves out there, but not enough money to put together a team. They decided the risk would be worth the reward and took themselves and their equipment deep into the rain forests of South America on this long shot of an expedition.

***'***

Bailey looked back over her shoulder again making sure her lover's sounds of annoyance were from nothing more serious than the ever present gnats and flies and perhaps a little fatigue. They'd covered miles of territory since setting out at sunrise and it was well past noon now. They'd stopped to rest for a quick meal, and took regular short breaks, but trail blazing was still hard going. Satisfied with their relative safety she faced forward and took another hearty swing at the plants tearing a wide swath and exposing a sight the likes of which hadn't been seen by mankind for centuries.

Bailey stopped in her tracks, knocked breathless by the beauty of the landscape in front of her. Emma, busy terrorizing the undergrowth, ran right into Bailey's unmoving back.

"Why did-" Emma didn't finish the question as she came around to Bailey's side and was similarly dumbstruck by the view.

"Look at that," Bailey breathed, "It's amazing."

Emma nodded her agreement and brought up her camcorder to take in everything.

They stood at the top of a small cliff, one they would have to rappel down in just a few minutes, and before them was a vast expanse of rainforest that had grown untouched by man for thousands of years. Everything was so green and lush. Trees stood, gigantic and looming, festooned with draping vines and undoubtedly filled with wildlife. Birds flitted and swooped above them and among them, mere specks in the sky. Strange haunting calls echoed, aimless under the canopy of such an awesome feat of nature. One could forget just how enormous the rainforest can be when in the midst of it, focused on all the little things and never realizing the bigger picture; one of those "can't see the forest for the trees" situations. Bailey and Emma had been so immersed in the minutia that they'd quite forgotten exactly how large and wondrous their surroundings actually were. Well, here was a living reminder of just how phenomenal nature could be.

And there in the near distance, just a few miles to the north east, stood their goal thrusting its way to prominence and dwarfing the forest giants it nestled in the midst of.

"There it is!" Bailey cried, nearly jumping with excitement and pointing over to the temple they'd come all this way to find.

Emma panned the camera out from Bailey's outstretched hand and managed to capture the temple in its sights, zooming in on it as far as she could and still coming up with a picture that took up no more than an inch of the camera's four by three inch vidscreen.

"Yep," Emma said, still focusing on the camera, "there it is. Now all we have to do is go through all of _that_ to get there." She moved the camera to capture images of the expanses of forest they would have to muscle through only _after_ they managed to climb down the cliff they were currently on top of.

Bailey grinned at Emma, which Emma captured on film, "Oh, don't be such a sour puss, Em. That'll be easy!"

Emma rolled her eyes and handed the camera off to Bailey in order to get out their climbing gear. She would be the one to go down first, of the two she was the better climber and would need to make a trail Bailey could easily and safely follow.

Emma pulled out ropes, harnesses, gloves, and helmets and made sure Bailey was kitted out before she even thought of scoping out the cliff to identify the easiest starting point. But once she'd prepared Bailey and herself she laid an anchor, tied her rope securely to it and tossed the length of it over the edge. She tested everything several times before she dared hook herself or Bailey onto the rope and she ran a redundant cord, one tied firmly around a sturdy tree as an extra safety measure in case they lost the rope she'd anchored into the ground. Then after reminding Bailey to be careful, taking the camera, and kissing her for luck, she dropped over the side and began a careful descent laying extra anchors to mark the trail for Bailey's drop (and that would be used for their ascent back).

She'd chosen her ropes well, their lengths easily reaching the floor of the forest below, though she carried several ropes of varying lengths to cover any distances she might encounter. Once she reached the ground, her feet planted on good old terra firma, she tugged the rope in the pattern that would indicate to Bailey that it was time to follow. Then she looked up with the camera raised to follow her gaze and prayed fervently that Bailey remembered everything she'd been taught on their many climbing trips. She watched like a hawk, ready to take off and rescue her lover if she got into trouble, but Bailey seemed to have things well in hand as she slowly and steadily abseiled down the cliff. Bailey's calm control didn't stop Emma from sighing in relief and claiming another kiss though, not that Bailey was protesting.

"See," Bailey smiled when the kiss ended, her eyes lighting up in triumph, "That was easy."

"Uh huh," Emma replied and started packing away the climbing gear, "Tell me how easy it all is after you finish chopping your way to the temple. We've got miles to go, Miss Pickett."

"Alright, fair enough," Bailey just kept smiling as she shook her head. "And that's Dr. Pickett to you," she teased.

Emma looked up with a smirk, "That's not what you were saying last night when we-"

Bailey blushed hotly and tried to cover the camera's microphone input while looking scandalized at Emma, "Hey! There's a reason we don't record that stuff!"

Emma just laughed and moved the camera out of Bailey's reach.

Bailey pouted, her cheeks still bright red, and packed the rest of their gear in a huff. "Come on. Like you said, miles to go."

Emma kissed Bailey's cheek and cheerfully followed her reluctantly pleased life mate.

***'***

Several hours later found them finally lurching onto ground still miraculously clear after centuries of being untended.

They'd finally reached their destination and stood upon slabs of stone lain out in what could only be a courtyard for the temple.

"Wow," Bailey said, looking at the massive stone structure towering above them. "This thing is incredible! Look at this stonework! Primitive peoples shouldn't have been able to do anything like this! But this is advanced masonry on a monument that predates the pyramids! Look, these stones here are in a pattern. And these ones here. They're all over the place…" Bailey looked at the stones more carefully, and then stepped back into the tree line. She dumped her pack on the ground and looked for a tree to climb.

"Bailey, what are you doing?" Emma asked, catching Bailey's words and actions in the recording.

"Here," Bailey said, holding her hand out towards Emma, "Give me the camera."

Emma handed it over and stood back as Bailey took the camera strap between her teeth and started climbing a fairly intimidating tree, using vines and a small climbing hook to aid her upward progress.

When Bailey reached a branch she thought sturdy and suitable she stood on it, using one hand for balance against the trunk and one to hold the camera, and looked through the leaves to the courtyard below. "I thought so."

"What?" Emma called up after she heard Bailey mutter.

"The courtyard stones are set in some pattern." Bailey called down, "Like those pentagrams in the Wicca books my sister studies, only not quite. There's no actual star shape. But there is a circle. And a whole bunch of smaller patterns in the circle. It's really complex. It must have taken a long time to design." Bailey lifted the camera and got a very good recording of all the symbols and patterns woven into the stonework of the courtyard, not in the least worn down by time. Then, very carefully, she slid down the trunk of the tree and back to the ground. Something about those patterns was familiar to her, but she just couldn't place it. She knew some of the glyphs were for protection and strength, she'd come across them in the scroll, but others were wholly new to her.

It was then that Bailey noticed the absolute silence that surrounded them. All the way through the forest they'd been able to hear the sounds of animals going about their lives, calling out to the world the happenings, she was sure several of the calls they'd heard had been warnings about the two legged intruders. But now, in this place, there was silence from the animal world. The only sound came from the wind and the women, nothing else. It set the hairs on the back of Bailey's neck standing up. There was something off about this place.

"Let's check out the rest of this place," Bailey said as she forced her unease down and picked up her pack, "then we'll set up camp."

They explored the whole of the courtyard, recording every step of the way, and made their way up the long series of steps which led to the entrance of the monument. Bailey was careful to examine everything along the way for any runes or special carvings like those she'd seen in the courtyard, but there was nothing on the steps.

It wasn't until they reached the mouth of the temple that they discovered more. Not just writing, pictures. Entire scenes adorned the walls up here leading to the sealed door hidden in the darkness of the immense hallway.

The scenes Bailey could see were of monsters. Hideous and vicious beasts, all fangs and claws, tearing through animals and humans alike were the subjects of these first carvings. Carnage spread as far along the walls as the natural light reached.

"Bailey," Emma asked quietly, her hand running lightly, fearfully, over the deep etchings, "What is this?"

Bailey, still feeling a nagging sense of familiarity about this, replied, "I'm not sure."

She reached for the flashlight on her belt and stepped deeper into the hall, the light splashing along the walls and illuminating more of the scenes all around them. Emma stayed close to her back, camera following the beams of light and taking record.

The horror of the early pictures continued for several feet down both sides of the wall before they began to change. A figure appeared, one that was obviously human, wielding a weapon much as Bailey had earlier used her machete and cutting down the monsters. Bailey knew, suddenly, that this was the warrior the texts mentioned. This was the hero to whom the monument was built. And she said as much, quietly speaking into the dark.

Bailey was filled with an eagerness to find out more. She moved swiftly along the wall, shining her flashlight carefully along the carvings, drinking in the story the pictures told and softly narrating all she was seeing.

The warrior stood alone, always alone, against the creatures and back always to the carver of these walls. The weapon the warrior obviously used to great effect as the images of demons became fewer for several lengths when there was a surprising resurgence in their numbers. The pictures showed the warrior fighting, always fighting, and protecting the people cowering away from the beasts and their protector alike. There were symbols indicating night and day. The warrior fought at night when all the creatures appeared, and by day it appeared the warrior trained with figures Bailey could only think to call priests (though she had the feeling this wasn't quite what they were). The stones told the story of a lonely life, one full of violence and pain. They showed the warrior wounded many times over, but always returning to fight the creatures of the night and triumphing over them. Until they became too much and the warrior was wounded badly. And then, Bailey and Emma got a shock. For the first time the carver showed the warrior from the front. A woman! The warrior was a woman! Fighting all these things alone, until she couldn't fight anymore, a single woman saving so many people, it was astounding!

Once again indicators in Bailey's mind rang for attention only to slip out when she reached for them and she became absorbed in the tale the stones had to tell.

The carver showed the warrior laid out on a bed, wounded and dying, but still clutching her weapon and willing to fight to the end. The story continued, the warrior called her training partners to her at her death bed and they stood over her with arms outstretched. There was an indication that they all glowed, lines carved radiating outward from their bodies and into the warrior until the warrior stood again, alive! There were symbols beneath these pictures, ones that Bailey loosely translated as the imparting of a plan from the warrior to her magic men…but she couldn't translate in enough detail to understand what the plan was, there were too many unfamiliar words.

The stones continued on, as did the tale of the warrior. She stood, her back once more to the carver, facing an army of monsters with her single weapon held grimly by her side. Then she was charging, and the audience with her, directly at the hordes of creatures. The warrior swung her blade to devastating consequences against impossible odds and yet she drove the things back. She hurled herself at them, the magic of the shamans still pouring from her, and she drove them back into a hole in the ground. A large gaping hole, a weeping wound in the flesh of the earth, and she forced the beasts into it cutting down those which tried to escape until all of them were writhing in the mouth of the earth. She stood over them as daylight broke over her head, ever alert, keeping them trapped as her magic men surrounded girl and hole and laid symbols in the earth and raised the temple around her, sealing her inside to die with the creatures she'd defeated.

Bailey felt tears start rolling down her cheeks as she finished narrating the story for the benefit of the camera. Tears of horror and sympathy for the girl, tears for the immense bravery and courage and sacrifice she'd made to keep her people safe.

They'd reached the end of the wall and turned to take in the door. Carved upon it was a ghoulish demonic face with a mouth full of teeth stretched wide as if to devour the world and pinning that mouth closed was the weapon the female warrior had wielded.

"My god," Bailey said. She knew that monstrous face. She'd seen it before in texts, and in a letter her older sister had once sent home. Hell Mouth. The girl was a Slayer. She'd sacrificed herself to close a Hell Mouth and save the world. This whole freaking temple was built to be sure the Hell Mouth stayed sealed, and Bailey would be damned before she'd be the one to unleash Hell on earth.

"Bailey?" Emma questioned, training the camera and her own flashlight towards Bailey's face, "What is this?"

Bailey looked up into Emma's face; she could read there that Emma knew that Bailey knew something and needed answers. She took a deep breath. "This is a monument to a great warrior, a protector of her people, whose last act was to sacrifice herself to save the world. This is the story of a line of women, girls really, who since time immemorial have been protecting mankind from the things that go bump in the night. These walls tell the story of a Slayer."

"A what?"

"Into each generation a Slayer is born: one girl in all the world, a chosen one. She alone will wield the strength and skill to fight the vampires, demons, and the forces of darkness; to stop the spread of their evil and the swell of their numbers. She is the Slayer." Bailey gave the same short speech her family had been given when her older sister, Danny, had been picked up by a small group of people who called themselves the New Watcher's Council, "At least, that's how the tale used to run. Fifteen years ago, back in 2003, there was a Slayer named Buffy Summers. She was facing down the First Evil and used some powerful magic to Call all the girls with the potential to become Slayers. She awakened the Slayer in all of them and formed an army to stop the First. My sister was Called by that spell, she was 14. Buffy and her army won and stopped the First. After that, Buffy and her people started gathering the girls they'd Called and training them. They never forced them to fight the demons, but they taught them to use their powers to better help them lead normal lives. Danny still works with them."

"This can't be true," Emma said, shaking her head to try and make the world make sense again. She'd never heard of Slayers before, Bailey had certainly never mentioned her sister being one, and surely a bunch of super powered girls would be noticed. Demons couldn't be real.

"It is," Bailey asserted while looking Emma directly in the eyes. She'd never lied to Emma since they'd been reunited and she wasn't starting now, "And they're going to want to know about this. Come on." She grabbed Emma by the wrist and moved swiftly towards the daylight at the end of the tunnel.

"Wait," Emma protested, "aren't we going to open it?"

"No!" Bailey whirled around to face her lover, "Opening that door, this…tomb, would open the Hell Mouth _she_ fought so hard to close," Bailey's hand jabbed out to point at the image of the wounded Slayer, "And _we_ will not be the ones to undo her work. We have to call in experts." Bailey turned around again and started leading them back out dragging a still confused Emma behind her.

"I thought we _were_ experts!"

"Not in this," was all Bailey replied.

***'***

When they reached the open air of the outside Emma watched as Bailey planted her butt on the ground and started fishing around in her pack, pulling items out seemingly at random and strewing them about her.

Emma was still confused about the whole thing. The story on the wall was certainly a powerful one, but she was having a hard time believing it could be true. Demons and magic couldn't really exist. Bailey was a logical thinker, how could she believe in any of this? And if she did believe in demons then what the heck were they doing traipsing about in foreign countries armed only with their little guns? From what Emma had seen on TV demons certainly wouldn't be taken down by a bullet. Didn't they all have weirdly specific things that killed them? Like a wooden stake through the heart, a silver bullet, or strange herbal concoctions thrown on them?

Bailey finally seemed to find what she was looking for as she yanked a strange amulet out of her bag along with the satellite phone they always had with them on expeditions. She watched Bailey dial the phone and clutch the amulet.

"Danny?" Bailey said loudly into the receiver, "Danny, can you hear me?"

Bailey turned the amulet over in her hand, "Emma and I have found something your boss is going to want to see."

The amulet made another turn in Bailey's palm, "No, not Andrew. Buffy, Willow, Xander, Giles. This is a big find."

The amulet disappeared from sight as Bailey clenched her hand, "A temple. A Slayer temple. Yes, I'm serious! For heaven's sake, would I call you about it if I weren't sure?"

The amulet reappeared, "Good. Tell the coven I have the amulet you gave me. We're in the Amazon Rainforest." Bailey listened for a moment, "I don't know exactly. Brazil, still, I think. Whatever, you can track the amulet."

The amulet was strung around Bailey's neck, "Yes, I'm wearing it. No, I won't take it off. We'll see you soon."

Bailey closed up the phone and ran a shaking hand through her hair, and then she looked up and caught Emma watching her. Bailey smiled a sheepish smile, "I guess I have a few things to explain."

Emma just raised a brow and gestured for Bailey to continue.

"You're not going to make this easy for me, are you?" Bailey asked looking like she already knew the answer to that question.

Emma just smirked and tilted her head.

"Yeah, I didn't think so," Bailey blew out a breath, "Okay, well, for starters: my sister Danny, you met her once, she's a Slayer." Bailey watched Emma for a reaction but only got a nod. "She was picked up by these Council people, some of whom will be coming out here soon, to be trained in how to use her powers safely. That's when I first learned about Slayers, I was ten. Danny wrote back all the time to tell us what it was like at the school. She told us about fighting demons, and stopping apocalypses, and how much she liked finally feeling like she was doing something useful with herself. She was never meant to live on a farm all her life, she was always dreaming of bigger things, of being a movie star or a great singer, famous you know. She said she wanted to make a difference. And she finally felt like she was."

Bailey ploughed on, "She wrote back about Buffy, about how she got Called, about Slayers she was learning about and how they lived short and brutal lives until Buffy stepped in. Slayers, when it was still just one of them at a time, used to die within one or two years of being Called. Except for Buffy. Well, actually, Buffy did die. A couple of times," Bailey saw Emma's eyes widen, "She didn't stay dead. She wasn't a zombie or anything, but she kept coming back. And she changed everything. Called all the Potentials and made them Slayers. Now most Slayers can lead pretty normal lives, long lives, because there's so many who want to fight that not all of them have to and hardly any die anymore unless some big mistakes are made. But the whole Slayer system has been changed so they're all well taken care of and looked after."

Emma spent a moment absorbing all of this before she asked, "And where do that amulet and your call come in?"

"Oh," Bailey rubbed the back of her neck, "When I started going all over the world my parents started getting really worried about me. And Danny sent the amulet and said that as long as I kept it with me she, or her people, would always be able to find me. They give one to all the Slayers for safety and Danny had them make one up for me. Of course, I have to do translation work for them now and again to 'pay' for it, but it gave Momma and Pappy some peace of mind so it's worth it."

"And the call?" Emma persisted, eyes boring into Bailey's own.

"The records of the Slayer line are incomplete. There have been so many since the First Slayer and so few records were actually kept that the Council only has a shaky timeline for their history. This temple is one huge missing piece for them. They deserve first crack at it. It's part of the Slayer heritage. So, I called Danny and she's going to get a few Council people down here to take that crack."

Emma was a little mystified, "How are they going to get here?"

"Magic," was Bailey's simple answer.

"Magic doesn't-" Emma never finished that sentence. For at that moment the amulet dangling on Bailey's chest glowed a bright green and in the empty space there'd been before stood five new arrivals. Emma's jaw dropped. Magic apparently _did_ exist. Which meant, _crap,_ that demons and Slayers did, too. Well, this required a drastic adjustment to her world view, that's for sure.

One of the new arrivals, a red head Emma recognized from family portraits in the Pickett home, split off from the group and made a B-line for Bailey. She easily lifted Emma's lover off the ground and hauled her into a crushing bear hug. "Bailey!"

Bailey awkwardly patted her sister on the back, her face slowly turning colors, and squeaked out, "Hi, Danny. Nice to see you, too. I need to breathe."

Danny hurriedly released her sister and steadied her while she regained her breath. Danny looked over, caught Emma's eye and grinned, "Emma," she said, "Keeping my sister out of trouble?"

Emma smiled back, "Not really."

Danny laughed, "Good," she slapped Bailey's shoulder while Bailey made an indignant sound, "Trouble's good for her!"

"Miss Pickett," an aged British man said as he removed his glasses and polished them, "If we could get to the task at hand?"

"Right," Danny said, "Sorry, Giles. Bales, Emma, these are Mr. Giles, Xander Harris, Willow Rosenberg, and Buffy Summers. This is my sister Bailey and her…is it fiancé, yet?"

"Danny!" Bailey cried out.

"What?" Danny turned amused eyes on her little sister, "Like that ring hasn't been burning a hole in your pocket for months."

"_Danny_!" Bailey protested again. "I am never telling you anything ever again! You're a terrible secret keeper!"

"Pffft, you've known that since you were five," Danny breezily waved off Bailey's declaration, "And you _still_ keep telling me things. You know you only tell me things when you really want them to be public knowledge. That's why you told me about hiding all of Parker's jewelry all over the farm when you were twelve and _didn't_ tell me about your first time."

"_Danny_!" Bailey seemed to be stuck on repeat.

Emma grinned and made her way over to the Pickett sisters, she patted Danny's arm as she said "I think that's enough teasing for now, Danny." She took Bailey's hand in her own and told the younger of the Pickett sisters, "You and I are going to have a talk about that ring later, though."

Bailey blushed darkly and covered her face with one hand, mumbling assent.

***'***

Bailey got over her embarrassment quickly though and introduced herself to figures who had become legends to her through Danny's letters. She showed them the courtyard from the advantage of the top of the steps, pointing out the patterns which Giles identified as an extremely large protective seal that actually went all the way around the building. After that she led them back into the tunnel, shining her flashlight on the walls to show them the carvings until Willow cast a spell that lit the whole tunnel and allowed them to see the carvings in their entirety.

Buffy and Danny couldn't stop themselves from running their hands all over the walls, tracing lines and reading the story through the bumps in the stone. It was obvious they felt this story in a way far more visceral than the others, as if it reached them all the way to the soul and resonated there. Willow said the memories of the Slayer line might be making them live it as they read it on the walls. Giles glanced over the pictures, focusing on the runes etched into the stone that only accompanied some panels until he focused on the door itself. Xander was just waiting and when Buffy and Danny finished feeling their way along the wall with tears in their eyes and shaky hands he was there to wrap an arm around each and ground them in reality again.

"This is," Giles began, turning to look at Bailey and Emma, "This is quite the find, ladies. Our records have made no mention of a Slayer like this one, nor of a sacrifice like this."

Bailey stepped up then, "Well, the scroll that led me to this place nearly predates the written word, and it was talking about this place as if it were ancient history even when the scroll was written. This temple is beyond ancient. I wouldn't be surprised if the history of this place was passed along in the oral tradition until it became just a story, not a real thing. I think that once the temple was completed the people abandoned this place for fear of the demons ever getting loose. Then just forgot that it was a place where a great victory was won, where the demons were defeated. There are horror stories about the forest, people disappearing and bodies turning up brutalized, and those who remember the temple blame those happenings on it. They wouldn't write anything about it down for fear of drawing its attention. But someone wrote about it, and led me to it."

"Quite astonishing, really," Giles said, "I wonder what her name was?"

"She didn't have one beyond Slayer," Buffy said, "Not after she was Called. They just called her Slayer and eventually she forgot her own name."

The thought of that made Bailey incredibly sad. This girl had been stripped of her identity and turned into a machine for fighting evil to protect people that forgot all about her and her sacrifice. There was something incredibly _wrong_ about that and it made Bailey's heart ache.

She felt Emma squeeze her hand, "We'll remember her. Even if we can't do it by name. And at least those who raised this temple around her honored her."

"That's more than most Slayers get," Giles agreed, "Much more."

***'***

They spent several days there taking pictures of the walls and the temple as a whole and, when Buffy and Danny opened the door, several days taking pictures and video of the wonders to be found inside. More carvings of the Slayer's heroic deeds were found and, to the Scooby's astonishment, a prophecy about the temple being found and remembered again.

They all carried away scrolls, ancient beyond measure, which detailed the lives of many Slayers previously lost to history and only vaguely remembered through Slayer dreams. And though most of the accounts were short and brutal, they were also tales of great triumphs and written with obvious respect and admiration for the subjects. Giles wondered aloud how the Old Council could have been born from this foundation, how it could have warped itself so horribly and forgotten the Slayers were people.

It was something he would be left to wonder all of his life. For there was no answer beyond greed, they would never know who was the first to step down that path, they only knew who followed after and they knew that they fixed it. They had built a better way, a way more like the ways of the people who had raised this temple to pay homage to a brave and mighty girl who had faced down evil and won.

Bailey enjoyed the time she got to spend with her older sister. She rarely saw Danny anymore and she'd missed having her free spirited sister around. And though Danny teased Bailey mercilessly she was still a great person to talk to.

After helping getting the contents of the temple into safe storage facilities in the hands of the New Council to be catalogued, recorded, and added to the Slayer histories around the world, Willow had offered to transport Bailey and Emma home via magic.

The two considered it for a bit. Wondering what it would be like to feel magic all around them like that. But ultimately they decided not to take her up on the offer. They were emotionally spent, discovering such significant monument, learning the history behind it and more about the Slayer line had wrung them out. They needed time to be together, to reassure themselves of the things that made them alive (their work, their love, their pleasure in the world around them), and to readjust to this new world where a small army of young women hold back the forces of evil from destroying the world. It was a lot to take in. They would definitely be taking their trip back slowly, treating it as a vacation of sorts and enjoying the ethereal qualities of the deep forest, before they threw themselves back into the hurly burly of the real world.

Plus, taking the long way home would give Emma a chance to ask Bailey about that ring.

She was anxious to hear more about it.

Maybe even see it.

Or, better yet, wear it.

**THE END**

*****'*****

**Disclaimer:** I do not own the shows or any characters from the Suite Life series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or Stargate: SG1.

**A/N: **Love it? Hate it? I won't know unless you review. So review, or I will find you and introduce you to my elongated socket wrench (it's very shiny and eager to make new friends).


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